Not All Blogs Rushed To Bash Beck

Not all LDS blogs or bloggers in the bloggernacle joined in the rush to bash President Julie Beck. Ordinarily I enjoy reading Peggy Fletcher Stack’s articles in the Tribune. Most of the time, I think she does a good job of producing well written, balanced articles about religion generally, and specifically about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormon Church. But, Stack’s article in today’s Tribune departs from her normally calm and measured reporting.

Within minutes of giving the speech before the 21,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered in the giant Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City or listening via television, radio or satellite feed, Mormon men and women across the country were furiously responding on Mormon blogs.

While it is true that within minutes the bloggernacle was awash in various comments and posts about President Beck’s speech, Ms. Stack leaves the distinct impression that by far the vast majority of the comments and/or posts were negative:

Debate about the speech has continued unabated throughout this week. By now, there have been a half-dozen conversations simultaneously raging on several Mormon sites, generating hundreds of mostly critical comments about the speech, though not about Beck herself.

While referencing blogs, in the plural, Ms. Stack chose to link and name, only one—Feminist Mormon Housewives, likely the most controversial, and fiery blog discussing Mormon and women’s issues–mostly from an extreme feminist slant. Known in the ‘nacle as fMh for short, it was conceived and is run by fMh Lisa Butterworth,

It was the second time in less than one week that Ms. Stack has officially linked fMh in one of her Tribune articles. On 10/6/07, Stack devoted an entire article to fMh, Ms. Butterworth and their collective self identified “Mormon feminists” The article was overwhelmingly positive, characterizing fMh as a blog where it was safe to be a feminist and “faithful.” Whether that is true, is probably the subject of a completely different post, which frankly I’m not really interested in exploring. One can visit fMh and come to their own conclusions.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with Ms. Stack writing fondly of feminist Mormon housewives, but when she goes out of her way to profile the same blog in less than a week, and then imply as she did in the Beck article that the tone and tenor of most of the bloggernacle discussion mirrored that which took place on fMh, one begins to question Ms. Stack’s objectivity.

Ms. Stack deliberately neglected to mention various other specific positive posts and the myriads of positive comments in other posts discussing President Beck’s address. Why? And, how did Ms. Stack conclude that the “hundreds” of comments generated about President Beck’s talk were in fact negative. Did she actually tally the numbers? It would have been nice to have a reference, or at least a reference to a percentage.

Notably absent from Ms. Stack’s article were several positive posts and hundreds of comments about the talk, most of which were positive, and better both in content and construction than that cited over at fMh. Specifically, Ms. Stack missed the following:

I was disappointed in the initial but very predictable reaction of what I think is a vocal minority in the bloggernacle. I was likewise disappointed that Ms. Stack’s article left her readers and the world with the mistaken impression that the vast majority of LDS bloggers and members viewed President Beck’s talk negatively. You are a better columnist than that, Ms. Stack. Please reclaim your normally balanced and objective reporting style on LDS issues, citing both sides next time.

Good post and some needed balance. I too was perplexed what necessitated a second article on this same subject. FMH is obviously popular and serves its readers well, but it is getting a lot of love from Ms. Stack.

FMH is an important blog. There is nothing wrong with a group of Mormons who are going against the hegemony of orthodoxy (or at least orthopraxy) and expressing a viewpoint that doesn’t necessarily mimic the voice of the correlation department.

[…] some attention (and justiable outrage) from conservative blogs but not enough in the Bloggernacle, unlike some subjects. Not living in Utah, I don’t know how this has played out beyond newspaper […]

[…] The Salt Lake Tribune does its best to keep stoking the controversy by revisiting the bloggernacle furor over President Beck’s talk. And tries its darndest to rebut her. Usuallly newspapers ignore blogs. UPDATE: Good commentary at Messenger and Advocate. […]

R. Gary (#10), the T&S discussion might better have been characterized as “an open and wide-ranging discussion of Pres. Beck’s talk.” I disagree that the term used in the SL Trib article was particularly accurate. Not that there is much hanging on the description, of course — anyone can read the discussion and make their own determination.

To professional bloggers such as yourself, 🙂 that nuanced difference between a comment and a post make actually be a distinction. Regardless, my take on the article was that the reaction and commentary “mostly” negative–at least from Ms. Stack’s perspective and reporting.

True, there were “negative” comments. I’m not certain it is accurate that most of the reaction on the blogs though was “negative” when one factors into the equation both “posts” and “comments” which I think is fair to do as they are both reactions to the Beck address. Overall, I think the positive posts and comments probably outweighed the negative; but, I will admit I did not actually count them to make certain. On the other hand, I’m not a professional journalist, writing for a major metropolitan newspaper.

R. Gary:

I would agree with you that the T&S thread did contain some negative comments about Pres. Beck’s talk; but, it was an open thread, and not all of the comments were about that particular talk, and not all of them were negative.

My biggest complaint was Ms. Stack’s second reference to fMh in just days as though it is a “mainstream” blog in the bloggernalce or somehow representative of it. I also objected to using fMh as a reference point for the typical reaction to the Beck address. I don’t think it was. As I pointed out there were several other completely opposite posts in several posts around the ‘nalce, not one of which was referenced in the Tribune article. Rather, it focused on the exclusively negative reactions and implied the negative was in fact how most in the ‘nacle actually viewed the talk.

Clark: It does seem that the more controversial the more likely the folks in the MSM will notice and begin to quote you. Even more unfortunate is the implication that perhaps the more controversial are somehow a measuring stick for most other blogs in the ‘nacle.

Dave: I agree–one can read the discussion and make their determination; but, I think all too many will just rely on what the Tribune printed and won’t on their own read the other blog posts or comments, and come away thinking that the fMh reaction was somehow typical of the bloggernalce as a whole.

In my view, Peggy Stack has projected a consistently negative light on the Church for many years. She apparently sets the editorial tone of the Salt Lake Tribune with regard to Church matters. Though it seems Peggy often uses a subtle approach, her predisposition is generally evident. It is not surprising that she chose something generally derogatory to shine a light on.

Thought I would add, that when I was listening to that talk I was outside of the chapel with my son and was wondering how my wife would take it, it was pretty straight forward and traditional, and my wife can be a bit sensitive on the “roles of a woman”. I thought she would be slightly offended, but she loved it. It was just what she needed to hear to receive confirmation that her efforts as a stay at home Mom were adequate and good enough. I was actually surprised.